


Our Fate Cannot Be Taken From Us

by withthebreezesblown



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Character Study, Deep Roads (Dragon Age), F/M, Found Family, The Taint (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 16:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18898177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withthebreezesblown/pseuds/withthebreezesblown
Summary: Marian Hawke goes into the Deep Roads looking for her fortune. A ficlet about what she found and what she left behind.





	Our Fate Cannot Be Taken From Us

_Don’t turn back._

She doesn’t dare turn, even just to the side when Aveline calls her name, doesn’t stop walking until the woman plants herself in front of her, blocking the way.

She cannot stand the look on Aveline’s face. It doesn’t belong there, not on the face of the woman who endured the taking of her own husband’s life with only determination, ferocity, and freckles to be found. The only thought in her mind when she rears back and slams her fist into all that sympathy is that she cannot bear it.

She knows how tensely they’ve all been watching her, because the moment she moves, everyone else is moving too. Someone’s arms are around her, pinning her own to her sides, holding her back while she laughs, a nasty noise sharp as daggers. “Oh, come on! Fretting doesn’t suit your face at all! I was just trying to keep you beautiful!”

When Aveline steps forward, furious indignation radiating from her ( _yes, better_ ), Isabela immediately moves between them, and the indignation turns to an even more overt version of the usual disgusted contempt she normally directs at the pirate.

“Oh, come off it, whore. If I thought she was _capable_ of having any sense _knocked_ into her, I’d like to see _you_ try to stop me.” She leans to the side, one finger rising to point at Marian in either accusation or warning. “I hope you know how lucky you are, Hawke, that I love you.” Without another word, she turns and walks away.

Just like that, the fight goes out of her, and the arms that were restraining are suddenly the only thing keeping her upright. These are words Aveline has never said to her before, and they hit with a blow that affects her far more than any fist ever has. She could have laughed off being punched–Maker knows she has before–but to say _that_ , to say it now, while she’s struggling so hard to pretend her world is still intact and not reeling all around her, that her brother, one entire half of all the family she has left, isn’t limping away behind her, half carried by the men who’ve found a way to live with the thing that’s killing him

“Go on. Give us a minute. We’ll catch up”

It’s only when his voice sounds in her ear that she realizes it’s Anders holding her up. _Of course it is._

Varric gives her a sardonic smile, full of the acrid anger he’s carried since Bartrand shut the thaig door in their faces. “If you can’t stand not having a brother around, you can have mine. After I kill him, you can take him to a taxidermist and keep him forever.”

She could kiss him, the dwarf who understands her better than anyone she’s ever known, for giving her the thing she needs to find her feet.

When he feels her take her own weight back and find her balance, Anders tries to turn her. Something like panic rises, and she lashes out instinctively, a pulse of propulsion that sends him stumbling backwards. She only knows he’s stayed on his feet because she doesn’t hear him fall.

“I can’t turn around.”

“Exactly _why_ can’t you turn around?” His voice is cautious, and she can hear everything in it. The concern for her. The uncertainty that she isn’t just being ridiculous, just being _Marian_. The exasperation just waiting to come out if she is just being ridiculous Marian.

It hurts to say. It hurts because she knows it’s unreasonable and untrue, but she could pretend it wasn’t as long as she didn’t say it out loud. “If I don’t look back, he’ll be fine. If I don’t turn around, Carver will live.”

Instead of telling her that this is as ridiculous as anything that’s ever come out of her mouth, he walks around in front of her. “All right. If you don’t want to look back, don’t. Maker knows there’s no one on earth capable of making you do anything you don’t want to anyway, but just so you know, that isn’t _why_ he’s going to be okay. Your brother is the most stubborn, temperamental ass I have ever met. If it’s down to a battle of wills between him and the Blight, I’d bet everything I have on him.”

Though perhaps a little tepid compared to her usual cackle, the laugh that comes out almost sounds normal. “Says the man who lives in a sewer and owns nothing but dried elfroot and embrium.”

He puts his hands on her shoulders, as though the gesture can somehow convince her of his sincerity in a way that the intensity with which he looks at her cannot. “Marian. He’ll be okay.”

“Says the man who promises every mother whose child has come too early that everything will be fine. The man who promises every emaciated denizen of the underworld whose bones rattle when they cough that they will get better.” Her fists, still curled into his robes, push into his chest with each accusation.

“And who have I ever been wrong about?”

“…You can’t _know_ that though. You can’t ever _know_. And one day you’ll be wrong. And I don’t know how you’ll stand it. That’s why I do it, you know. Make sure everyone knows that I’m a ridiculous creature who can’t be counted on for anything sensible. Because one day you’re going to be wrong, and it’s going to tear you apart.” She doesn’t know the last time she spoke so many honest words in a row. So many words that lay bare and unprotected the parts of her she would do anything to keep from breaking. Before her father died, she thinks.

For a moment, he looks away, his gaze moving unseeingly into the Deep Roads behind her. When he looks back, his expression is somehow even more intense. “Maybe one day it will. But _not today_.”

She wants to believes him. The healer who she has seen with her own eyes take babies delivered blue and silent by their mothers, and give them back pink and screaming with life. The rebel apostate who, though she isn’t supposed to be aware of it, has smuggled mages out of the very Gallows. A man who carries with him the essence of _monsters_ and who says her brother has the strength of will to carry it too. She wants to believes him.

“Promise me.”

He doesn’t even hesitate, eyes steady on hers. In the dim light down here, they look darker, but when he stares at her like this she can see the gold. “I promise you that Carver will live.”

_It will be okay._

_No, that’s a lie; even if he lives it’s a lie._

To be fair, Anders’ words have pulled her along, far closer to, if not _okay_ , then at least _hope_ than she thinks she’s ever made it on her own. As for the distance that’s left, she’ll just have to cross it the same way she always does.

_Laugh. Laugh until it doesn’t hurt anymore._

She sighs, a slow, breathy exhalation. “Well, that is a relief. But I’ve had a terrible shock, you know. I’ll probably need you to carry me the rest of the way back to the surface.”

His expression is incredulous. “Just like that? You’re just going to…” He shakes his head before giving her _that_ smirk. Amusement and frustration and something else that she hates to name for fear of being wrong. “One day, Marian Hawke, I’m either going to kiss you or kill you.”

“Oh!” She draws the sound out, long and girlishly high. “Can it be kiss? I hope it’s kiss!” She tilts her chin up and bats her lashes in a preposterous imitation of flirting.

She isn’t expecting it when his hands land, more on her ears than cheeks, tipping her face down, her lips away from his, as he leans in and presses a rough kiss into her hair hard enough that it’s almost more head butt than anything else. “There you have it. Now let’s go.”

She lets him take in her look of wry disgruntlement a moment before speaking. “Well, _that_ really lived up to my expectations. It was beautiful. I’ll never forget it.”

He shakes his head again, eyes rolling toward the cavern ceiling. “Just move.”

When they catch back up to the others, their silence is intolerable. “My, my, what a grumpy lot you are. You’d think someone just punched one of you in the face.”

Varric responds immediately, “You mean we aren’t having a group meditation on how to best murder Bartrand? I thought that’s what the moment of silence was for.”

There are a few grunts of agreement, which have become the standard response to Varric’s many comments about his brother during the last week of hunting for a way out of this place, and again, she could kiss him for his words, because he has carved out a comfortable space for her in the quiet with them.

It’s some time later when Merrill leans into her conspiratorially, her voice a whisper so loud it hardly qualifies and is, if anything, only more conspicuous. “So, did it make you feel better? Hitting Aveline? She doesn’t love me, so I think she’ll hit me back if I hit her, but I feel terrible. I can fix my face with a bit of magic if she breaks it. Or Anders could fix it for me. He _is_ better at that. Anyway, I thought it might be worth it if it worked. So, do you feel better?”

Before Marian can answer, Isabela calls out, “I’ll let you spank _me_ , if you’d like, Kitten.”

Merrill just blinks owlishly, eyes shifting to Isabela and back. “She’s being dirty, isn’t she?”

Marian laughs delightedly, throwing an arm around the elf and hugging her to her side. “It would be good bet, Merrill, to assume that _everything_ that comes out of Isabela’s mouth is dirty. She likes to be consistent, you see. Dirty things in. Dirty things out.”

“He-ey!” Isabela’s voice breaks the word into two syllables of mock offense. “I resemble that remark!”

She leaves Isabela to explain exactly how and why spanking is dirty to Merrill, who is already distracted telling how the only time she was spanked was when someone named Tamlen talked her into trying to use magic to give the halla wings, so they could pull the aravels in the sky.

When Marian catches up to Aveline, she reaches for her hand, fingers sliding and locking between hers. On her face is the shit-eating, golden smile she used to give her father when he realized she’d done something she knew perfectly well was wrong, like stand in the middle of Lothering’s market day and cast Euphoria all around her just to see what would happen. “Avie.” She waits until the woman looks at her, a protest at the abbreviation she despises on her lips, before batting her eyes at her and speaking. “You _do_ know I love you too?”

The woman just sighs, the hand that had been limp in Marian’s grip till now squeezing. She grimaces. “Maker preserve me; yes, Marian, I know.”


End file.
